RESOURCES - SINGLE AND DIVORCING PARENTS

Unaccompanied minor flights | Tech tools for parents

Many family lawyers assist their clients in learning more about long distance parents and about how major airlines unaccompanied minor programs work. While researching the David and Sean Goldman case, I learned about a very helpful Internet tool that allows parents on both ends of the flight to keep track of where their children are in the journey. See Flight Aware at http://flightaware.com/live/flight/XFL5

In an earlier post on this Blog, guest poster Elizabeth Sadowski, Family Law Lawyer in Rochester, Michigan offered the rules from various airlines for having children fly as unaccompanied minors. That was written in early 2008, though, so I recommend checking with the airlines for updates.

To use Flight Aware simply put in your child's airline information such as Flight number, ( tail number in the case of the illustration, which was a charter flight from Rio to Orlando on December 24, 2009) and destination into Flight Aware's database.

I suggest that those with very young children or nervous stomachs use a direct flight. The airlines will allow you to walk the child to the plane. The other parent will be allowed to go through security in the destination city to pick the child up at the door of the jetway after the plane lands.

Comments

This is a good tool. My 7-year-old son flew unaccompanied for the first time during Thanksgiving via Delta and it worked very very well. Delta doesn't allow children to fly unaccompanied on flights with connections -- only direct flights. This is good in the sense that there is nowhere for the child to be lost or waiting, other than on the tarmac. One tip: get to the airport early enough so that you and your child can look for other children near his/her age so that there is someone to play with and talk to on the plane. Parents of these children were very willing to, unofficially, watch-over my son. One father even suggested that we exchange phone numbers so that he could alert me when they were on the ground. The airline also has someone onboard to watch-over the unaccompanied child, but it's even added peace of mind to know that your child is happy and stimulated and occupied while onboard.